


never and forever

by choerim



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Sort Of, Too Many Thoughts, i guess?????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29195409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choerim/pseuds/choerim
Summary: Minho doesn't believe in forever
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	never and forever

Minho doesn’t believe in forever.

Forever is something unfamiliar and too uncertain.

So, as much as he could, Minho focused on the current— the present of time and now, and he’ll try hard. If he had time to dance practice, he would, not caring on how exhausted he would be hours later. If he had the permission to go home, he would, to meet his beloved cats and parents, and the warm place called home.

Minho straightened his back, placing his arms on the railing, gaze went to the younger who was taking pictures.

He looked at Hyunjin whose eyes focused on everything. Felix’s pose, how Jisung slipped in the frame and snuggled beside him, the backdrop— all the details someone like Hyunjin could capture. His tongue sneaking out as he pierced his gaze and clicking the button to save a memory of such.

(“You look at Hyunjin as if he hung the stars for you,” Jisung once said. “It’s ridiculous.” 

Minho scoffed. No way he looks at someone with that much amount of fondness.

“I don’t think so.” Chan spoke up, four eyes immediately went to the eldest there. Chan had been quiet throughout Jisung’s analysis of How in Love is Minho towards Hyunjin, occasionally laughing, but mostly focused on his laptop screen.

Minho gestured to Chan, cocking his eyebrows to send a message to Jisung— _told you so_.

Chan laughed. “You look at Hyunjin as if he is the star. Stop denying your feelings for the kid.” Jisung barked a laugh at their small studio that fit just enough. Minho clicked his tongue, looking back at his ignored phone.)

Felix and Jisung left, saying they’re going to follow where Seungmin and Changbin were, wherever that is— probably the convenience store or the field, Minho doesn’t really care.

He felt a warm (a rare feeling) (but it’s familiar) presence beside him. He stopped the fiddle of his fingers and looked up to see Hyunjin’s gaze was elsewhere, somewhere to the sky.

“You’re not going with them?” Minho asked, voice coming out raspy, just fitting to the mute night. 

He shook his head. “No, I’ll be here for a while.”

“You’re staying?” A slight chuckle left his lips, it was bitter, unbeknownst why, but it doesn’t matter.

“Yeah.” pause. “I am.”

Hyunjin looked down, attaching both his little fingers with one another as if he’s afraid he would lose himself in the process of something Minho wouldn’t know of.

“I’m staying.”

(“Why would someone leave their significant other if they loved them? It’s for their own goods? That doesn’t make sense at all?” Tone questioning as Hyunjin placed the statement on their living room desk, drunkenly.

Minho laughed. “You know the saying— If you love someone, let them go. It’s sometimes effective, you know?”

Minho knew how sensitive and emotional Hyunjin was as a human being. A fragile glass at the edge of a cliff, glass full of pure water, just waiting to be tasted or sweetened or tainted even. Hyunjin was naive as one could say.

Hyunjin groaned. “But don’t you see?” His tone increased, as if it was meant for Minho to notice the musings that scattered his brain.

Minho couldn’t. Hyunjin was a contrasting figure compared to him. He doesn’t understand.

“If you loved me, you’d stay, wouldn’t you? Distance won’t matter, the world won’t matter. Feelings— They stay, no matter what. If things go wrong, we’ll try to fix them, to correct them, to try harder to be enough.” Hyunjin rambled, his eyes never stayed at one place, but his voice directed right at Minho and only Minho. “You would, _right_?”

Trembling and shaken, the voice he heard and ground beneath him. The thought was immature, a selfish one because there’s no way one could keep other forever— it just couldn’t happen. It won’t.

“But staying is hard. Love is easy. Hate is easy. Staying.. isn’t.” Hyunjin said, pain colouring every crack of his fading voice before he huffed a laugh and blacked out.

Minho had to clean the mess and return Hyunjin to his bed, never mentioning again what the younger had said that lonely night.)

Some time in their time of silence, Hyunjin spoke up. Not that Minho minded— even if he wanted to savour the silence once in a while, just staring at everything and nothing; the rippling waves, the summer breeze (humid), the soft chirp of crickets, the dazzling moon and the stars that came with it.

He wasn’t paying attention to Hyunjin’s anecdotes, his ears only focusing on how excited the younger sounded as the corner of his eyes wrinkled. He only assumed it started off from the abandoned dog he found in the streets.

“—and then Kkami started to rile up from between the bushes and I got so surprised that I—” Hyunjin’s eyes met Minho’s who was staring at him with an unfamiliar look that made Hyunjin feel butterflies swirl around within him.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin started again (it was always Hyunjin who made a move between them). “you aren’t listening.”

Minho hummed. “Sorry.” He noticed Hyunjin reconnecting his loose fingers again. “You look pretty when you’re excited.”

Minho saw the pink blush spreading even in the dark. Hyunjin tried to shrug it off with a laugh. “Are you saying I’m only pretty at those times only?”

Minho knew he wanted to lift the atmosphere with the small joke, but it wasn’t Minho if he was cooperative with this kind of stuff (and he doesn’t really want to joke around with Hyunjin for now.)

“No.” Minho looked up and stretched his arms, action similar to a feline. His gaze fell to where Hyunjin was again. “You’re always pretty.”

(Hyunjin whined on the waiting room’s couch, pushing and pulling the older’s arm.

“Delete the pictures, I don’t like them.” The pictures he was talking about are those Minho took without his permission, many of them when he was sleeping or talking to the other members with full of giddiness that Hyunjin didn’t notice the lenses aimed at him.

“But I do.” Minho chuckled and Hyunjin rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, because you just love everything that’s ugly.” Hyunjin scowled, pulling back to the other side of the couch.

“That’s not true.” Minho said, it slipped out. Why not, proceed? “I like you, that’s the opposite of ugly now, is it?”

Hyunjin’s back straightened and eyes widened so comically that Minho wanted to tackle him right then and there if their stylist didn’t suddenly call out Minho’s name.)

When Hyunjin’s gaze never left, he felt the insides of him banging and forcing their way out. Something wistful filled Hyunjin’s eyes and longing was what Minho had seen.

“Were you serious that day? That day when—” Hyunjin paused, tongue wetting his lips, a habit Minho came to notice of the younger. “That day when you said you like me?”

Minho’s senses started to falter as he didn't know what possessed him to give a smile and hummed, tearing away from the eye contact that seemed to be clawing his throat.

Minho might be in love with Hyunjin, but he doesn’t believe in forever.

A commitment is a risk and as someone just as a temporary, thinking of feelings that were never the same in any second they live— it exhausts him that made the heart inside his ribcage throb against his will.

But Hyunjin is too. Hyunjin is also an uncertain and temporary human being. He’s an emotional mess that sometimes doesn’t say what he wants.

(“You are too, hyung.”

“You’re too distant from me.” Hyunjin paused as the ocean of stillness filled between them that could drown them in any minute. “And to yourself.”

He mumbled under his breath in the empty practice room that was only occupied by the two as the clock nearly struck midnight.

It started off as a small banter between Hyunjin who strict himself over the pressure he gave. The pride that overflowed him that day, never mentioning a plea of help that Minho at the end of the music playing voiced out.

There was a sigh that slipped his lips. “Then, I’m sorry.” Minho furrowed his brows, not sounding too sincere. “I’ll try to talk more.” He paused. “I guess.”

Hyunjin’s usual smile turned upside down and Minho regretted what he said, but he couldn’t take it back. Truth was what he said and he didn’t sugar any bit of it.

Hyunjin sighed and approached the door before looking back. “Thank you for today.” He said, a grip placed on the knob. “Love you.” He muttered as he immediately ran away leaving Minho with himself.

It was different from the i love yous he heard from the game they played and Minho doesn’t hear nor say them often, because the three little words in his language were different, as Chan once said.

They mostly came from Chan, Jisung, Felix, Jisung, Felix.

Minho shook his head and collected his things. Even if both were going to meet at the dorm anyways, Minho never lifted the topic again.)

“So, now what?” Hyunjin asked, nervousness filled the edge of his tongue that let out a shaky breath. “We know we like each other, then—”

“I don’t know, Hyunjin.” Minho interjected.

Something flickered in Hyunjin’s eyes— of sparkles that silently faded, changed with the liquid that welled up in his eyes. 

“Why don’t you know? Why wouldn’t you?” Hyunjin started to speak in a trembling voice, Minho became concerned. He tried to reach out, enough for Hyunjin to feel the comfort he usually gave him.

At nights after hours of practicing when Hyunjin would hug him from behind and hide his face in the crook of his neck, breath tickling his skin— eyelids slowly closing before the two placed themselves on a bed, usually Minho’s because his was cleaner. On days when Minho would miss his cats and whine throughout the day, Hyunjin would come to ask questions about them that Minho would happily answer even if Hyunjin already had the most knowledge about his cats.

Minho tried to reach out, but he pulled back. Letting the younger close his own face with his large hands and putting the blame on him. 

“I just want to be with you. Let me stay.” It slipped out between Hyunjin’s soft sobs.

(The back of their hands grazed against each other. Minho pulled away, a distant from Hyunjin and a distant from what he actually wants.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin said some time, somewhere. “It’s cold.”

Minho intertwined their fingers in lieu of answering because even if he doesn’t know what he actually wants, he would always comply with what Hyunjin does— what Hyunjin does want.

Minutes of silence went on between them. “If you wanted to hold hands, just say so.” He teased and tugged the hand in his grasp.

Hyunjin chuckled, some time, somewhere, it doesn’t really matter. “I will then.”)

Minho lets out a sigh of universe only knows how many times he did in that time of the night. Hyunjin stifled a sob when Minho finally reached out and Hyunjin’s hands were with him. His thumb grazed over his knuckles.

( _It’s because I love you_. He mused to the unconscious mass just in his reach, but something was holding him back. A guilt. A conscience.

Because he knows how much of a makeshift they are _._ Because in their shared timeline, somewhere all of them could turn dead and gone. Because something permanent is never real, never true. End is inevitable.

It scares him— it shook the core within him that kept him still and transparent.

Yet—

The three little words still slip out of his lips. _I love you, I love you, I love_ —)

“I’m sorry.” was the only thing he could say and Hyunjin shifted in his grasp. “I’m sorry that I can’t.” 

“I know.” was what Hyunjin said. Hyunjin took a grip on Minho’s wrist and pulled it closer to his chest where his heart was beating loudly. “I know and I’m sorry. Too.”

A shuddered breath left his lips and the brain cells inside him betrayed him as he leaned in, cradling the taller’s jaw with his other unoccupied hand. He saw how Hyunjin was burning in his grasp (Minho was too, but he didn’t mind).

Leaning in and leaving a mark of something that people wouldn’t notice at first glance, just by messy hair and swollen lips. Electricity were to be felt in their nerves and it burns, burns, and burns—

Just as a sign of tenderness or a token of apology for not knowing what he wants, but Minho was eager to try if it’s with Hyunjin.

Because Minho doesn’t believe in forever.

He always knew since the start that his life will come to an end, someday, some time.

But for now, as long as he lives, he won’t leave by choice. He’ll stay for his parents and his cats, somewhere in the list are the members, and along the way, Hyunjin was there too.

Maybe.

(“It was so disgusting.” Jisung said once he found out the two had been kissing around during breaks or any other time they had alone.

“You’re disgustingly in love.” Felix added. “Finally, we’ve been waiting. It took you, what? A year and a half? Yeah, that was _really_ fast.” Felix emphasized and Hyunjin laughed.

“Congrats you two.” Chan entered the scene with disheveled hair. “But I beg you to not do that again. I don’t want to get in trouble because of you being chaotic lovebirds.”

Minho grinned and nodded, much to everyone’s surprise.

“We’ll do it here then.” He said, proceeding to pull Hyunjin from his shoulders and meeting their lips as it flowed just smoothly. Screaming could be heard, but Minho couldn’t care less.

Hyunjin was smiling now and that’s all Minho wanted.)

**Author's Note:**

> 01\. this work came from the time i procrastinated to study  
> 02\. this is a mess— expected since both hyunjin and minho here are the result of night thoughts i had when i wasn't feeling well. either way, sorry for the mess i wrote here, i'll be back with more and better ones hopefully !  
> 03\. i hope you enjoyed whatever this is (??) do leave kudos and comments if you did, i'll be more than grateful !!  
> 04\. hope you're okay wherever you are, take care and stay safe <3


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